


E-Boy to Soft Boy

by Vic_writes01



Series: Tumblr Prompts - Reddie [3]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Gay Richie Tozier, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Mentioned Myra Kaspbrak, Mentioned Sonia Kaspbrak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:33:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21854557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vic_writes01/pseuds/Vic_writes01
Summary: Richie refuses to be labelled as the classic E-boy from the way he dresses so he goes back to his roots. The good old Hawaiian shirts with a matching undershirt and jeans. But of course, still listens to hardcore rock anthems/bands and wears the odd band tee. This leads to Eddie outwardly flirting with the curly-haired boy and one thing leads to another.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: Tumblr Prompts - Reddie [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1573708
Kudos: 66





	E-Boy to Soft Boy

As soon as he hears what and E-Boy is, Richie is quick to change his style, getting rid of his black jeans and graphic tees (obviously keeping his band tees). Richie had given up smoking years ago and he was glad he did, he’s much better than he was back in high school. Richie had refused to try vaping from Bev or take any more weed. He wanted to be clean, even if that meant going cold turkey on the things that gave him comfort and especially the potential lung cancer.

Swapping his emo look for a more colourful look isn’t easy, living for the dark colours and the eyeliner. It comforts him. 

It isn’t like he’s going completely soft, he still listens to his AC/DC and Guns n Roses CDs. Plus his My Chemical Romance and Nirvana CDs. It’s just the outside look that’s changing, maybe this way he can actually make some friends at college! Instead of shying away in his dorm room every night and day.

*

That’s just what he does. He sits down beside some boy (around his age) that he’s seen talking to his best friends, Stan and Bill. “Hi, Eddie right?” Richie asks the shorter brunette in a pastel pink polo shirt and jeans.

“Yeah, Richie?” Eddie asks, Richie nods and throws his backpack his feet and sits beside the other boy. “What’s with the new getup?”

“I was being labelled as an E-Boy tiktoker but I’m not so I opted for a change,” Richie explains.

“I kinda miss the grunge look.” Richie feels his cheeks heat up a little and hopes that his blush isn’t obvious. “But I’m really digging this, it’s hot.” 

Is he seriously outwardly flirting with me? Richie thinks, no, that can’t be.

There isn’t the slightest possibility that Eddie is attracted to the ‘new’ look. He has to just be complimenting him on the new style, Eddie is an obviously straight man, right? He has his girlfriend sitting right next to him, so he has to be straight, or at least Bi! Right?! RIGHT?!

Richie doesn’t focus on the lecture but on his panicking thoughts, completely overthinking the interaction only seconds before. He starts to tap his foot to the rhythm of ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go?’ Thinking of just leaving the lecture hall and potentially throwing up from the panic, or maybe the gay panic as some memes say. 

Maybe changing from an E-boy to a Soft boy was just a huge mistake! He can still be an E-boy without the cancer sticks, right? But he doesn’t want to be an E-boy or an Emo anymore, he wants to be the old Richie who wore shitty Hawaiian shirts day in day out. 

The one that cracked jokes about mom’s and his dick. 

The one that got straight A’s and helped out at the dentist that his dad owned.

Richie wishes that the times were different, back before the bullying drove him away to a state over and took up smoking and marijuana. Sure he met Bev but she wasn’t the same as Bill or Stan, he missed those lunatics. Well, that was until he found out that he was going to NYU with them.

With that being said, Richie pushes himself out of the seat and towards the exit, almost throwing up in the process. 

*

Once he manages to get up to his dorm room, he immediately throws up in the ensuite bathroom since Stan basically forced the three of them to get a large suite with an ensuite didn’t want to share a bathroom with anyone. It is more expensive but the suite allowed for a third person and they immediately said ‘Bill’.

“Oh sorry ‘ill, didn’ see ya dere,” Richie says with mouthful emerging from the bathroom with a toothbrush sticking out from his mouth.

“You feeling okay Rich?” Bill asks, Richie throws up a finger to tell Bill to wait as he spits out the toothpaste that was accumulating as he brushed.

“Uh no. I think Eddie flirted with me.” Bill cocks an eyebrow in confusion before starting to laugh. “What’s funny Big Bill?”

“It’s so obvious he’s straight and you’re reading too much into it because you haven’t had a boyfriend in, - wait, you’ve never had a boyfriend.”

“Yes, thank you so much for pointing it out! I’m a 19-year-old virgin, I get it!” 

Richie huffs and sits down on his bed. Maybe Bill’s right. Maybe he is overthinking the interaction just because he’s desperate for someone to like him. That has to be the simplest explanation. 

He just sits there for 5 minutes, thinking, thinking about Eddie, thinking about himself. Sure Eddie is cute, they’ve never spoken a word before today but he had seen Eddie around campus and in the common area of their dorm. Not to mention in a couple of classes and seeing him talk to Bill and/or Stan. This crush starts to build more and more but Eddie has a girlfriend that Bill swears looks like Eddie’s mum. 

“Richie, I feel your panic vibes. What is it now?”

“I’m going to talk to Eddie.”

Bill sits at his desk dumbfounded, watching Richie get up from his bed and rush towards the door, but he’s unsure if he should be stopping Richie or not. The thought of Richie getting his hopes up and getting hurt… it isn’t what he wants.

****

As he walks towards Eddie’s dorm room (he mentally thanks Stan’s loud mouth), he thinks about what ‘soft boys’ do. If E-Boys, wear dark colours, smoke/vape, basically be emo; then what do soft boys do? Maybe be sweet, gentlemen-like? Richie doesn’t know, all he knows is emo. He worships the colour black and the whole My Chemical Romance movement. He loves heavy metal and the 70s and 80s music, well era in general. 

He makes note that most of his old clothes, yes were ‘soft boy’ shit but were also vintage, like what his dad wore during the 70s and 80s. Is there such a thing as a vintage boy? Richie thinks, probably not.

Richie finally makes it to Eddie’s dorm room and he knocks lightly hoping that it is loud enough for the short brunette to hear.

“Richie? What are you doing here?” Eddie asks as he opens his door and Richie immediately found the floor interesting, keeping his vision locked onto the wooden strips.

“I uh - I just wanted to apologise for running out of the lecture like that,” Richie explains. It wasn’t exactly a lie, he did feel guilty for running out like that but the crush on the boy in front of him overpowered his senses, causing him to start an anxiety attack.

“I think I know why.” Richie snaps his head up, locking his eyes with Eddie’s, he feels his eyelids pull open as far as they can go. What is happening?

“Uh? How? What?” Richie starts to stammer on his wording not sure how to form a sentence. After 19 years, he has finally been made to shut up without being “beeped” or told to shut up; this is completely voluntary.

“I too have had a crush on you. You’re kinda hard to not notice in all that black. As much as I love the change, you’re such a hot emo.” 

Richie can’t believe what he’s hearing, he’s practically jumping for joy, but he’s kicked back to his senses when he sees a photo on the wall. It’s Eddie and his girlfriend at some fancy college event. “But don’t you have a girlfriend?” 

“No, she’s just a friend but she’s kinda obsessed with me and won’t let me be my true gay self.”

“So that’s why Bill’s so adamant on you being straight.” It all makes sense now, no wonder why Eddie cringes when the girl loops her arm around his waist or when she tries to kiss him, he pulls away. 

“Yeah, everyone thinks that. Myra just has my ma’s way of thinking. ‘Those homosexuals have aids Eddie-bear, they’ll infect those with weak immune systems’.” Richie starts to laugh. “She was the worst, tried to make me go to a community college and then she forced me to date, Myra because I told her I was gay.”

“Sounds like the absolute worst.”

Eddie nods and sits on his bed and signals for Richie to join him. Richie shyly walks towards the bed, sitting down awkwardly an arm’s length away from Eddie. The boy beside him gives him a look and he scoots closer to him, his long lanky legs outstretched in front of him. 

It’s an awkward silence, the two boys sit in silence facing the opposite wall. Richie needs to make a move, Eddie made the first one back in that lecture hall, so he needs to think of something and fast.

Richie scoots a little closer so that their hips are basically touching, his arm goes around Eddie’s waist, pulling him closer. “I’ve had a crush on you as well.” Richie swears he hears Eddie’s breathing hitch. Thinking he made a mistake, he pulls away but Eddie holds him back.

“You know the ‘soft-boy persona won’t suit you,” Eddie says. “It means you act all sweet but really you’re a fuck boy. Just from meeting you today and from what Bill and Stan have told me about you, you’re too sweet to be an asshole.”

“So you prefer my emo look?”

“Did you change for me?!” 

Richie laughs and shakes his head. “God! If I did someone needed to shoot me. No, I found this.” Richie points to his Hawaiian shirt. “Back at home and decided to dress like I used to. Band tees are still part of that, but I’m going back to the old Richie.”

Eddie smiles and looks up at Richie. “Tell me, what does the old Richie entail, and what made you say goodbye to the new Richie?”

So Richie tells him about his childhood, the bullying, the ‘mom’ jokes, the fact that he was a repressed gay geek that was more often than not seen at the arcade playing Street Fighter. He was a happy kid who chilled in his bright Hawaiian shirts (that were 3 sizes too big) and matching undershirts often paired with shorts or jeans. His coke bottle glasses always falling down the bridge of his nose. 

Life was simpler back then.

He further explained that when he was finally driven out of the town and to a state over, he met Beverly who was a complete and utter badass. She was the one that introduced him to more music than just Nirvana, Led Zepplin, Guns n Roses, AC/DC and Queen. Richie’s music taste developed tremendously, so his clothing palate became dark. 

She opened his eyes to the beauty of weed and tobacco, not to mention beer. She was his first and only friend at his new school, a real beauty, the only one that knew his secret other than Stan and Bill. 

It wasn’t until junior year that he realised that smoking was a cancer stick, sure he knew beforehand but he didn’t want to waste his life away. So by the time that vaping became a thing at the end of senior year, he had fully quit and was offered a puff from Bev’s Juul and Richie refused. 

****

“Wow. Didn’t pin you as a smoker,” Eddie says after 5 minutes of letting everything sink in.

“Please don’t hate me, I know you’re a health nut,” Richie says.

“I could never. I’m glad you stopped.”

Richie smiles to himself but dragging out a thought if he didn’t actually stop smoking. Would Eddie have turned the other way and refused to talk to him? Richie doesn’t want to be thinking about that but the thought continues circles around his head.

He can feel another anxiety attack coming on but he can’t excuse himself because then the boy that’s hugging him will know that something is wrong. Richie tries to relax and push the negative thoughts away. 

The two fell into another awkward silence unsure of where to go from there, but the ball is now in Eddie’s court. “So Eds, tell me more about you. I just told you how I have always been a secret softie,” Richie says.

That opens a flood gate of all possible topics to tell Richie so he stays on the topic of how his mother made him into a hypochondriac and made him into a repressed gay. 

*

Needless to say, Richie is starting to get weirded out by the fact that he’s in Eddie’s dorm room hugging or really cuddling the smaller boy and the two of them acknowledging that they have a crush on one another but saying nothing about it.

Richie doesn’t want to say anything in case Eddie isn’t - 

“Rich, what are we doing?” Eddie asks. “We’ve been sitting here for an hour.”

“Well, do you want this to be a date or just a couple of friends hanging out?” Richie prompts.

“I don’t know.”

“If you want to figure things out beforehand -” Richie’s cut off by Eddie’s lips. It’s over as quick as it began, not giving Richie the time to react.

“I’m ready to be my true self. If you can do it, I can.” Eddie smiles. “Wanna come down to the admin office, I have a major to change.”

“Going badass on me now?”

Eddie smirks and kisses Richie again, this time Richie’s prepared and immediately kisses him back.


End file.
